For all reading, I and a few other are certain the best way to bring Linetroops into the foreground and better balance the lethality of fireteams is to make fire teams function more like Coordinated Orders. I'm continually updating the suggestions as comments are rolled in so if you dont like the suggestions, vote no, explain why, that way we can make changes till we find a happy medium, keep checking back till the suggested changes are good enough for you to change your vote to yes. Working together, we can help CB better address concerns for the game. 1.Active Turn Fireteams: 2 modes for the active turn. A) "Solo" - The Fireteam Leader acts normally and fires at full Burst while the rest of the team can only Move. B) "Team Fire" - (2nd attempt) Functions as a better version of Coordinated Orders where Fireteam leader/spearhead get B-1 and the rest of the participants get half Burst rounded down. (The Team may use different ATTACKS and ACTIONS but to ATTACK any enemy model with DIFFERENT TYPES OF ATTACK simultaneously, any ATTACKING Team Members in the active turn must have LoF to the enemy model they wish to attack.) 2. Reactive Turn: Members of a Team are allowed to enter the Suppression Fire state and remain in the Team. AROs are afforded as normal and may be different from each other. Reactive Turn Bonuses: A) "Cantact Rear Bonus" - Models in a link team can draw line of fire to an acting enemy model as though they had 360 degree visor if another model in the team can draw Line of Fire to that acting enemy model. Suppression Fire must be cancelled in order to use this ARO. B) "Semper Paratus Bonus" - (2nd attempt) When 3 or more models in a fireteam can draw LoF through each other's silhouettes or from their front Arc to an acting enemy model they may lower the attacking enemy's Surprise Attack Mod by 3. C) "Suppressing Fire Bonus" - For each Team of Three members or more, at the beginning of the game, the reactive player may spend an extra command token to place one of the corresponding Team's members into the Suppression Fire State while respecting various other Command skills of the game. (This is not game breaking, people will still slice the pie, drop templates and this is less effective than B2 in ARO, Sixth Sense, BS+3 etc because of how tight knit these teams will have to position themselves. These bonuses better reflect moments in combat where a fireteam is not actively pushing forward but acting defensively in some way. If anyone is concerned this negates the importance of 4 and 5 man fireteams, consider that these bonuses are not devastating the way B2 or full blown Sixth Sense is and extra men afford redundancy and more table coverage while maintaining these bonuses and the active turn allows for more fireteam members to attack at the same time.) 3. Line troop SWC/cost must be adjusted. Should some or all Missile Launchers have something between an LSG to a Combi Rifle... (All the above changes will allow them to be used effectively in mixed Fireteams.) HUGE BENEFITS: 1. Fireteams will function as more effective coordinated orders without being freight trains. 2. The powercreep is significantly reduced. 3. It creates an easily understood method of dealing with hard targets. The benefit of Sectorials and their Fireteams up to a 5 man Core team was inherently in their efficiency in working together to bring down a mammoth not making a top tier gunfighter out of a mediocre mook so he could compete with the big dogs, but this way he could at least run with the big dogs on his team. An Omega to a sectorials Alpha This will allow our RPG character filled teams to shine and be useful but only as useful as their stock kit provides and not game the fireteam system. If you run the dice calculator for a BS 11 Linetroop Sniper with current 5 man bonuses against a SwissMiss from rooftop to rooftop vs 2 unopposed rolls of the same troop with no bonuses, the odds are only slightly less effective than the current fireteam bonuses and they are unapposed. Consider that a reflection of the effectiveness of a Linetroop HMG, a Missile Launcher and a Sniper on a Roof. In the reactive turn any fireteam member in suppression fire with these suggested rules changes is just as good as bonuses for a 5 man team, give 1-2% for attacking and defending models.
Seems pretty confusing to me at first glance, and I've been playing this game a long time... - Do the existing fireteam rules stay in place with these rules added on, or do these rules replace them? - If they stay, seems to nullify much of the "active burst bonus" minus one burst mode you propose - Whats the purpose of forced LoS for hackers and such? -The 'easily understood method of dealing with hard targets' is not an interesting method nor is it a necessary method. I think the onus is on you to argue that we need a solution to strong single models, and that the solution should be fireteams of weak models getting free shots. -Could minus one burst mode (we need a name for that) be reworded as essentially being coordinated orders? - Cantact Rear Bonus (name??) could be reworded as "Models in a link team can draw line of fire as though they had 360 degree visor if another model in the team can draw Line of Fire to an acting enemy model." Something like that. - The Cantact Rear bonus suppression fire cancellation clause seems clunky - Is the added complexity of Semper Paramatus worthwhile over a simple "Fireteams = Immune to Surprise Attack" clause? - Line Troop Cost/SWC adjustment: I agree wholeheartedly with decreasing the SWC on crappy troopers SWC weapons, especially ARO wepaons. This can be their thing. As for cost, I feel most are costed appropriately, with the main guilty culprit of overcosting being the Vanguard. I don't agree with giving every heavy weapon troop a regular weapon of some type too - theres already too many troops with swiss army toolkits which mitigates the power and agency of an acting model's positioning.
Only existing fireteam rules that would remain are are coherency, team leader, and limit of how many of each fireteam you could have: Core, Haris etc. This was meant to change the bonuses and how they attack and defend so that they werent over powered and also address the fact that line troops in fireteams often just support the main gunner from a different unit. The choice between just the main gunner and the whole team firing is because sometime one is more effective than the other and there isn't some strange mandate forcing all models to shoot. As for the hacker needing LoF, if the team is going to do anything other than just Hack is because the enemy should have at least one ARO that they can use against the whole team. Like placing a deployable near an enemy and then hacking for them either to Dodge or Reset but still have to make saving throws. Ofcourse if the community is okay with that sort of damned if you do damned if you dont sort of situation then it's easily removed, we just might run into a bogged down bloody mess and I wasnt sure how people would like that. But I do know some of the team shooting and others dodging forward is something some players would like fielding Carano in a fireteam... The existence of fireteams at all is that sectorials needed a solution to strong single models. That solution was to give a Burst and BS bonus. People didnt like that cause it was too abstract or too powerful or a number other complaints. The "onus" on me as you said is actually not on me since the community is rather vocal about LI being under used and Fireteams being too powerful. This seeks to settle both problems. It does, it's just, as you said the wording could be cleaner. But I'm happy to answer any questions. Yes a better name is needed for -1 Burst. Literally reversing fireteam and breaking apart the word into "Team Fire" works. I just didn't want to sit and struggle with a name and that just came to me right now. Also, the system works really well from all the possible scenarios I could think of, it just needs slightly better wording. But, the wording chosen is very specific so that fireteams are not too powerful. As for calling it, essentially coordinated orders, you could, but let's say your whole team costs 5 SWC and its consists of Red Furies. A Coordinated Order will not utilize even 4 Red Furies properly. But these troops have trained together to work smoothly, better than a Coordinated Order (which is needed in sectorials vs Vanilla) and they dont break the game because they're confined to a 16"bubble, usually taking up half that space on a table with a horizontal area 4'x4'... Your wording of the Contact Rear Bonus explains it exactly as is which means the meaning isn't lost, just the wording is too wordy. Thank you and consider it changed by tomorrow. Though, we'll see if people come back to change their votes after wording has been smoothed. You understand the meaning of the Suppressoon Fire clause which is most important, feel free to reword it and it will be changed. The restrictions on Semper Paratus are so that it isnt essentially Sixth Sense. I'm trying to limit the complaint about fireteam bonuses. Requiring more models having eyes on the field or watching a models back would require more specific positioning which would mitigate the table coverage a fireteam could provide, lowering it's power while allowing players the ability to prevent a fireteam being scalped by camo. If people prefer strait mitigation of Surprise Attack it can be done. Yes, everyone seems to agree LI SWC should be lowered and they're probably right.
To all those who vote no, what makes these rules worse than the current fireteam rules and how does this not help LI more than the current rules?
I voted yes, because I really dislike the fireteam powercreep that has been happening, and how boring it is to have to face the standard hyper-optimized defensive fireteam with +3 BS and +1 Burst in ARO on sniper rifles, missle launchers, rocket launchers, etc, that just camp somewhere and lock downs vast areas of the board. For me, the game is simply more fun when I get to face a vanilla army, than when I face a sectorial. Almost any change that makes defensive links less overpowered is a good change, in my mind.
I haven't voted. These rules as-is would not satisfy me, but that doesn't mean that these rules in some modified form wouldn't. I agree with the principle but not the implementation. It makes no sense for a trooper to become worse at hacking because he is in his well oiled squad. You essentially make a damned situation by preventing ARO against the other 4 troopers unless you choose dodge. For me, thats more 'technically a choice' rather than a meaningful choice. I'm going to need a citation on that one buddy. Theres a lot of reasons that Fireteams exist in the game, I haven't seen anything suggesting that this is necessarily their raison d'etre. For me it's survivability via the ARO threat personally. If there's something out there from the development team saying anything along these lines I'd love to see it. Otherwise it is an opinion, though even then I'd still be interested in the logic behind it. The onus is on you because you are the one asserting a fact. I happen to agree that LI are shit and Fireteams are not healthy for the game, but your statement regarding fireteams and hard targets is not a truth that I'm familiar with. True, but other than the sheer power of it it isn't meaningfully different than a Coordinated Order attack. When I see rules like that my instinct is to fold them in on themselves to create one rule. Of all the changes here this is the one I support the most, which I say as someone who thinks camo is as bad for the game as fireteams. It's just a matter of whether the complexity is worth it, which is a matter for playtesting and development.
Your proposed rules seem fiddly, one of the saving graces of the current Fireteam bonuses is that they're simple. 3 get +1B, 4 get 6th Sense, 5 get +3 BS, any replacement needs to be as simple, or simpler as Infinity is already a very complex game. Allowing free, and better, co-orders is ludicrously powerful. It completely obliterates ARO troopers without heavy vis Mods as they're forced to either Dodge or eat 1-4 unopposed attacks. Image a team of 5 Grunt snipers, a Totes Remote or Haidao Sniper gets to ARO against one member of the team or Dodge, the other 4 all get unopposed AP shots if they don't Dodge. No thankyou. Another example, 5 Fusiliers with HMGs, each one moves to the same corner and back out of sight again, unless your opponent has a missile launcher or HRL watching that corner they're going to eat 15 HMG shots, it makes non-template AROs absolute suicide against a Fireteam. Your suggestions also do nothing to increase the defensive power of an LI sniper or ML as far as I can see, they can't go into suppressive fire, your opponent isn't going to let multiple members of them see their active piece due to pie slicing, so you've got a BS11-12 trooper with no bonuses sitting on the wind waiting to get lit up with 15 HMG shots from the enemy Fireteam... The current Fireteam rules have their issues, and I agree that you can knock 0.5-1 SWC off the cost of LI MSRs and MLs, but this does not seem like the way.
Fair enough, of these do end up in the game, I hope they bring you the satisfaction you've been searching go egg. If you play test, please give feed back after.
Well, of you were to suspect that since CB has invested so much into sectorials, multiple profiles and fireteams, that it is without a doubt CB will keep fireteams, would you say these rules are better than the current rules? Would these rules utilize LI better than the current rule of just bonus generators like other troops are order generators? If not, how can these rules be improved without being scrapped? Also, I reworded several things already as per your request. I scrapped the hacking limitation, now, it is pure choice. Freedom is fun but this level of chess playing will take some getting used to. I don't think theres a citation but I remember as far back as N2 some of the complaints and the fireteam bonuses have existed all along. I hope you're not playing a rhetoric game with me however. It's been long understood that the compensation sectorials received for less variety, which a powerful effect in itself, was higher AVA and the bonuses for Firetesms effectively making a TAG when a TSG wasn't as commonly available and or viable. Again I can't cute it but I think all the vets will agree. I hope you reconsider your st ae once on fireteams. The implementation wasnt hasnt been the best in the changing landscape of the game but concept is extremely fluffy and with TacWindow and mixed fireteams it feel more like the adventures that CB based Infinity off of. A couple of characters and mixed troop specialities is "cool". I actually really really wanted to suggest Coordinated Order get this imrovement but then I suspect Vanilla could manage better angles not being limited by coherency and thus and then essentially delete what ever they Coordinated against. And I also wanted to square away nuances with one concept first, fireteams, then ask people about porting it over to coordinated orders if suitable. Agreed on your last
Actually, I assure you 100% I thought of these scenarios. Allow me to set your mind at ease for each of your concerns. Also, I'd like to say I agree the current bonuses are very easy to remember and yes my wording needed to be cleaned up some. Please have a second look as I received some help and made a second effort on the wording. These proposed fireteam rules are actually only barely better than a coordinated order because we have to Assume a Swiss or some other camo troop, a Tag or something like it will be apart of a Coordinated Order of which fireteams dont get to field baddies of that caliber. If up against a truly mixed team, of SWC and small arms weapons, it will be 2-3 weapons of each of the two major range brackets (0-16 and 16-32). So, roughly half the team will not be in good range and it's actually very hard to get a whole team of 4 or 5 guys to see the same target aside from shooting from rooftop to rooftop. Which brings us to your other example. If 5 fusilier snipers are on a rooftop, trying to bully, let's say a Sphinx... they get no discover bonuses (individual attempts instead). But you're right, he's got VIS mods burning chose him cause he cant go prone. But let's say you dont have Vis Mods, let's say you're a standard TAG. You're doing a F2F roll with on of then5 snipers. All 5 snipers are B1 in my suggested rules changes. So the one F2F roll the standard Tag stands a better chance of winning. The other 4 shots are unopposed, at a 63% chance of scoring 1 wound. Where as the TAG as 46% chance knocking his target unconsciousnand a higher chance of outright killing his target before the other 4 put a 2nd wound on it. It gets progressively worse for the Fusiliers as the firefight continues. At theirnoresent cost, not SWC, they cost 10 points more than a Squalo and I actually gave it BS14 not 15... plus, a good table has at least one building in each DZ to hide a TAG behind. Soooo, what if it's not a bunch of Snipers on a rooftop cause that scenario will likely never happen because it eats up way too many point and SWC in one little place meaning their coverage of the rest of the table is less effective. So, 5 fusilier HMG rotating at a corner laying into a gym. Each Fusiloer can move a total of 4 inches so, what are we looking at? The best possiblity for them, right? Go grab some models and test this out: put four models side by side backs against a mock wall with the far left one at a corner just out of LoF to an imaginary target around that corner. Try to rotate as many of those Fusiliers as you can with four inches of movement each making sure not to leave one out at the end and making sure you leave enough room for each not to be on top of each other at the end. They only need to poke put 1mm for me to consider they've gained LoF, ok. What you'll find out is only 3 of them can shoot without none of then being left out, if you attempt the 4th guy, he's trapped with a mmr visible. So if thay first order doesnt go your way well, you've got a problem. Of course you could always have 2 of the other HMGs not in cover slightly behind the other 3, essentially 5 dudes all leaning out at the same time, but again, 2 are not in cover. This time I run the squad of HMG Fusiliers against a Fusilier Combi in SupFire in his good range he takes the HMG 36% to 19% both in cover, he shoots a guy not in cover 57 to 14. Sure he's paste after, but he likely got one of the 5 HMGs 5 SWC of the enemies allotted weapons all in one spot, and he traded a a combi pawn for a rook HMG, not bad if ask me. It gets worse as you marginally improve the enemy while keeping the combi... Maybe plain Jane MSRs, RLs and MLs are not a good idea for defending. Maybe they are better at cooperatively taking out a strong ARO piece in the active turn as part of a mixed team. MSR, HMG, ML and FO and give or take some random character with a panzerfaust or just good BS... one of them is bound to make some Alpha's knees buckle... a Fusi MSR and FO, Quinn and a couple of Orc long guns...that can do work in active and reactive. Good positioning and 1 or 2 SupFire, they'll keep an enemy at bay. That Orc in Sup Fire against an average TAG is 25/17%. That's a lot of orders that TAG has to put in just to get over to him and then try to put him down. Even in his bad range its 2-3 orders to put him down and he can have a rifle... it really could be played a million different ways At the very least, these deserve some testing. I unfortunately cant at the moment.
You’ve been a member since Saturday and in that time you’ve determined the “problem” with fireteams, along with root causes, proposed a solution to your asserted problem, revised the solution and created a poll so people can vote to say how your proposal should be the rules. Please solve COVID-19 and world hunger for your next tricks. How are you credible? For whom are you a sock puppet?
Yeah, right. You have 7 posts. All in this thread. How are you a credible poster? Why should anyone consider your proposed fire team rules when there’s no evidence that you have any understanding of the rules of infinity, the interaction between rules, profiles and their relative utility nor the long running concerns regarding fireteams and their composition? If you’re a sock puppet, use your main profile. If you aren’t, do some work to convince people you have some worthwhile basis for your “solution”.
Looks like an extremely convoluted way of explaining the bonuses involved. A few notes on balance; one of the things that keeps fireteams manageable by vanilla players is that they can't act completely individually. Removing the ability to bait out AROs or force sub-optimal choices when you get close is bad and kind of a return to the old Sixth Sense in function rather than form. In particular, allowing several different attack skills during active turn is insanely powerful and would make it as close to literally impossible to defend against a Fireteam as you can possibly get. I think the tacticool jargon gets in the way and it needs some simplification. I think you'll need to respect the basic rules of the system more (such as the weird way of dealing with LOF in the case of ignoring surprise attack) and I think that Fireteams need to scale better with more members - I see no world in which I would feel enticed to have a Fireteam above 3 if they had the same bonuses as a larger team since deploying models apart is actually a very strong tactic provided the deployment zone allows it. Anyway, seems like your rules could be simplified to: 1. Fireteam members may use other Fireteam members' LOF arc as if they were their own. 2. Fireteams may enter suppression fire state. 3. Fireteams otherwise act as coordinated orders while respecting coherency. Yes, it's going to get a lot wordier when written down in final form, you could make the current Fireteam rules really concise in a similar way if you wanted to. But this is an elevator pitch.
Without wanting to comment on the main topic, this reply isn't correct because in your Active Turn there's no need to put all the models against the wall. All five S2 Troopers start outside LoF. All five of them have enough movement to reach the corner while out of sight, peek out while touching the wall for cover, then return to their starting positions. I haven't tested the upper limit (because it's irrelevant to Infinity), but if they don't return to their original positions then the total number that can cycle past the corner is even higher. For example No3 can move slightly over 1" to the corner, slightly over 1" back into position and then carry on moving in that direction to a new end position outside the 2" red circle, while a sixth Trooper starts there and ends where No3 started. Then do the same for No1 and No2.
Simple. Current Fireteam rules/bonuses are just that, simple. Composition is, granted, fiddly, but the rules themselves aren’t. A massive wall of text to replace them? Nope.
The only issue I currently have with the the Fireteam rules is the 4-person Sixth Sense bonus. Why 4 people working together are suddenly able to dodge mines, shoot backwards, and return fire through smoke with pinpoint precision is just too much of a reality break for me. The +1B and +3BS I can justify with the "the rest of the team is actually spotting/firing some bullets" justification. But "the rest of the squad is watching your back" letting you shoot through smoke? That I don't buy. Sixth Sense should've had 2 levels. A first level letting you ignore stealth and surprise attack, and a second level that does everything it currently does (with the 4-person bonus being level 1). 4-person links turning them all into Jedi is just too much.
To be fair, Sixth Sense itself makes no reality sense in a setting with no supernatural/psychic elements.
True, though the units that have it natively tend to be either genetically enchanced or super veterans (Vet Kazaks), so you can justify it with "Oh they just have super-fast reflexes and senses" or "They've been fighting for so long they've developed a (literal) sixth sense" or what have you. Even in real life people who've been doing a task for long enough will be able to get a "feeling" about something before it happens. It's not so much the ability to sense the future as it is your subconscious picking up on small cues that usually predate such an event. So I'm fine with the idea that some soldiers are just so in-tune with the rhythm of battle that they can perform some of these feats, even shooting back at an unseen enemy by following the opponent's bullet trajectory. I'm not fine with 4 Kuang Shi suddenly being able to do it.
The game rules are a bit inconsistent in how it's applied, though. The traditional/stereotypical type of units that would be used to illustrate this type of ability work don't have it (ninjas, warrior monks, nearly all genetically engineer troopers, nearly all genetically manufactured troopers, surveillance robots, etc) and the same thing can be said about actual veteran rule (there are soooo many extremely trained soldiers who are not only veteran fighters, but who have also died in combat more than once who don't have this rule). Instead they're used to give bravery-over-technology factions an edge. I'm actually fine with the idea that continuous verbal and non-verbal communication allows a group to have a similar capability. Maybe not specifically Kuang Shi, though...
